Opinion: Exploring candidate personalities
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Quick!
Hillary Clinton.
Your first thought?
Now Rudy Giuliani?
This is the kind of thing campaigns study closely so they can play off or on existing impressions of themselves and opponents. But now the Pew Research Center has done a public poll of 1,501 Americans on words and characteristics most associated with candidates. Sixty-seven percent of Democrats first think of ‘tough’ when they hear Clinton’s name, and 52% say ‘smart.’
For Republicans, the highest number, 39%, think of Giuliani as ‘tough’ while 29% think ‘smart.’ GOP voters also associate the former mayor with ‘compassionate’ and ‘optimistic.’
A third or fewer of Democrats associate Clinton with ‘optimistic,’ ‘compassionate,’ ‘energetic’ and ‘down-to-earth.’ They think of Barack Obama for those words and both Obama and John Edwards for ‘friendly.’
Forty-eight percent of Republicans associate Giuliani with ‘energetic.’ Fred Thompson drew 8% for that. Thompson beats Giuliani, 26%-29% on ‘even-tempered’ and 28%-27% on ‘down-to-earth.’
In the Republican field, Giuliani continues in first place with the support of...
32% of Republicans followed by Thompson at 21%, John McCain at 15%, Mitt Romney at 9%, the unannounced Newt Gingrich at 6%, Mike Huckabee at 4%, Sam Brownback at 2% and Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul each at 1%.
In April, Giuliani had the same 32%, McCain was second with 23%, Thompson third at 10%, Gingrich fourth at 9% and Romney fifth at 8%.
Among Democrats, Clinton has increased her lead from 39% in April vs. Obama’s 27%; to 42% this month vs. Obama’s 25%. Edwards had 21% in April and 14% now. Richardson had 2% and now has 3%; Dennis Kucinich and Joe Biden each had 1% in April and now have 2%. Chris Dodd had 0% and now 1%.
Not surprisingly, both parties’ members rank their front-runners as the most electable, but Democrats like their field better than Republicans like theirs.
Seventy-eight percent of liberals think of Clinton as ‘tough,’ but only 18% think of her as ‘honest.’ For Obama, 9% of liberals think of him as tough and 41% think honest, while Edwards is 7% tough and 17% honest among self-defined liberals.
Republican men find Giuliani, Thompson and Romney smarter than do women, who think McCain is smarter. GOP men find Thompson more down-to-earth at 34%, with Giuliani at 23%, McCain at 19% and Romney at 9%. Republican women, on the other hand, find Giuliani more down-to-earth at 32%, followed by McCain and Thompson both at 20% and Romney at 8%.
Finally, the poll found that if former vice president Al Gore endorsed a Democratic candidate for president, which he says he will do, about 7 out of 10 Democrats say they wouldn’t care. Only 21% said his choice might influence theirs. Seven percent said his endorsement would drive them away from that candidate.
The complete poll is available here.
--Andrew Malcolm